Locked threads

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I really wish that moderators would not be so quick to lock threads when an interesting conversation is taking place. I do appreciate that moderators have a job to do, but at least give the rest of us some time to take part before the dreaded padlock is added. In this case, I am referring to the "ORBx confusion" thread. Unfortunately, I was too late to enjoy that all too brief discussion.

EDIT: it seems that some posters decided to have a go at the moderators (for whatever reason), so maybe this one was justified. A shame, because I would have liked to have contributed to the discussion

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As you said, Christopher, someone made a disparaging remark about one of our Moderators. Generally that triggers at the minimum a suspension from the site and at most a ban. This is unacceptable. Anyone can disagree with a moderator, but not post abusive remarks about them.

If someone has a problem with a moderator's decision we can be reached through PM and we will discuss it with you but court is not held in the forums.

Also, about the time this happened, the topic you are referring to had descended into who's right and who's wrong state and the lock was appropriate.

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Nothing wrong with starting another one with the same theme. Members can bash each other (although we receive a lot of complaints about others inappropriately bashing our fellow members) but not the volunteer moderators. This is not tolerated and never was even when Tom was with us. Appreciate your concerns but we all must follow the guidelines that Tom set up for the forums in the AVSIM Terms of Service.

20 minutes ago, honanhal said:

A forum with no differences of opinion (even strong ones!) is a very boring place. I’m sure that’s not what the moderators here are after. ﻿

I cannot believe how many times I have seen this argument. It does not fit here at AVSIM. Of course, we do not try to promote boredom! This is not reddit and never will be reddit (for those not aware, reddit is a very offensive website that has few rules and almost anything goes). We are here to keep the peace (in all AVSIM forums - not the commercial forums hosted by AVSIM). At reddit, they have no one to keep the peace. Trying to tell us what to do in forums provided by AVSIM Online! and how to do it is not appropriate (and why do you think it is appropriate to bash the AVSIM staff?). We do not need a lot of bosses telling us how to run things. We get complaints from your fellow members. You do not get to see and act upon these complaints. It is about impossible to please everyone. I remind you of the Terms of Service developed long before me and mostly by Tom:

Behavior and Your Actions: AVSIM’s goal is to provide an educational and entertainment resource for people with similar interests and a community that is fun to be part of by users from around the world. Your acts and words on AVSIM will not, in any way, infringe upon others enjoyment of the AVSIM site. Any acts of bigotry, profanity, or disregard for what is reasonably considered to be social “norms” will result in suspension or banning entirely. Keep in mind that AVSIM is a multinational and multicultural site, and "norms" vary from country to country. What may be acceptable in your culture / country, may not be acceptable in others. If in doubt, contact AVSIM staff BEFORE you post anything that could be offensive elsewhere. This clause also includes and refers to any material or language that AVSIM Staff consider to be inflammatory and intended to do no more than elicit controversy and division.

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The "Lock" usually happens when posters go off topic or the conversation goes "South". We are trying our best to keep things going smoothly and without the arguments and name-calling.

I agree when the conversation goes "South", which I assume means getting personal and abusive. There is no palce for name calling.

However civil arguments should be acceptable. Everyone should have the freedom to disagree and make points pro and con. Likewise going off topic. Many threads become more interesting when an example of a similar problem or opinion keep the discussion going. That's called a conversation.

Noel

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I have always been a believer of people who moderate having two logons with separate avatars. One to participate in discussions as a member, in which case reasonable arguments are valid as with any member. A separate Id logon should be used for moderation where it is treated much more seriously and the uniform is to be respected.

Often moderator protections are imposed in debate where a normal member would not have the same.

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Really, I cant believe there could even be a debate about the plain and clear difference between the words 'recommended and required', but that is what this all boils down to, and that is why the topic had to go south. 🤢🤮

Truth does not really seem to matter anymore. No problem, this very thing was predicted long ago. 😌

I wonder what will be next? The letter A is not really the letter A anymore?🤯

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Really, I cant believe there could even be a debate about the plain and clear difference between the words 'recommended and required', but that is what this all boils down to, and that is why the topic had to go south. 🤢🤮

Truth does not really seem to matter anymore. No problem, this very thing was predicted long ago. 😌

I wonder what will be next? The letter A is not really the letter A anymore?🤯

depends if its A or a 😀

Edited November 1 by pete_auau

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The crux of the matter here is whether a serious and important debate should have been closed down due to a few members making off colour comments. Suspending them, perhaps deleting their comments would be the prudent thing to do. However halting an entire conversation means that those that have contributed in a well meaning and reasoned way have no way to further express their views. It should also be added that there is a direct conflict of interest when the moderator is also directly involved with the company being discussed.

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What particularly annoyed me when reading through that thread was that a moderator posted his opinion three hours after it had been locked with the clear intention of having the final word. That is simply abusing the position.

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I totally agree. Another topic that got closed quite quickly was the topic with the Iranian scenery. Even simmarket said, that this scenery can't be bought with paypal for obvious reasons. But the moderator here knew better and somehow made a connection to avsim what noone else did...

It was quite an interesting topic and could help others who run into the same problem.

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Don't forget we have people that are employed by companies that are mods, for example you say anything too determental about pmdg Kyle will lock the thread, same with Poppet about LM.

You also don't get a chance to explain anything, for example when I said Air France where arrogant I didn't mean because they talk French on their arc channel, I never once mentioned about that. What I meant was because they have never followed eu ops guidelines on flight deck access to non operational crew, (ie who can sit on flightdeck jump seats and crew rest areas) this was a contributing factor in both the Brazil flight, and that Montreal crash. On Montreal they had non operational staff members (office staff and family members) on seats by the doors not supernumerary seats. And on the Montreal crash the pilots partner was on the flight deck jumpseat.

And there policy on augmented flight crew, ie on the Brazil flight they had 2 regular f/o and not the recommended eu ops / easa recommended, one senior and one regular f/o on augmented crew (ie using the bunks)

Finally the skipper was known to be an arrogant sod didn't even bother looking at the weather on the High sig charts or the mach shear numbering on the flightplan, or at least rang ops to ask their opinion.

So you see if the mods had asked me why Id said that you would of had the answer from a man that has done countless crm courses where air france issues have been explained.

At easyJet we sacked a pilot once based upon air france issues as he used to invite people into the flight deck on the airbus, take out the autopilot and put it into a tight bank to show how the protection worked on the aircraft. He was sacked for that, not for messing around with the aircraft but for letting non operational crew into the f/D with out a flightdeck pass signed off by the safety department.

Secondly at virgin a skipper was sacked because he let a staff member on staff travel sleep in the upstairs cupboard by the stairs on the 744. The flight was completely full and the extra super numary jumpseats down stairs by the galley where occupied as they had extra cabin crew on for training. He was sacked because it was dangerous to have someone in a cupboard for take off and landing.

So the point I'm making is for a long time at air france they have had a culture of not following what everyone else does in eu ops guidelines but they have done 'their own thing' this is what has unfortunately cost them dearly. Anyone who works for an airline knows this and this was the point I was making

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I completely agree that offensive comments against the moderators (or any AVSIM forum members) should not be tolerated, but I think that there are better ways to deal with it than shutting down threads entirely. Offending posts can be removed, offenders can be given temporary bans to make them realise that posts of this nature will not be tolerated etc.

For the record, I also agree with Geoffrey that when a thread is locked, it should be locked to everyone. Moderators should not be allowed to post further opinions on thread content when normal AVSIM members have no option to respond.

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Froogle will do anything for hits these days as he's become almost entirely devoid of imagination in his lust to earn his shilling a month from YT.

I don't care for the moderator waiting three hours after the thread was locked to "have the last word". That is an abuse of privilege. The thread was locked - That should be it. No-one should be able to comment further. Not even the police.

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What particularly annoyed me when reading through that thread was that a moderator posted his opinion three hours after it had been locked with the clear intention of having the final word. That is simply abusing the position.

I am a moderator in my own Forums and many other websites, many times you don't realise the topic has been locked as you are reading it in sequence, you find something that you wish to reply about and because you are a moderator when you click the reply button the systems allows you to post the topic.

This is a system limitation, so what you describe could have been just a simple mistake without any harmful intentions.

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It's an easy mistake for a moderator to make as it's not obvious that a thread is locked until you jump right to the last page, and even then it isn't as obvious as you can still type in etc.. I don't believe the moderator was intentionally trying to get their last word in unfairly as it's a fairly easy thing to do without realising. Why everything has to be a big conspiracy is beyond me, people make mistakes and do things unintentionally.

As for why the thread was locked, it had basically just turned into "I am right and you're an idiot" festival. Yes, I'm also guilty and I should have kept my opinion to myself because the topic under discussion was something I was loosely involved in. However, some folk simply can't voice their own opinion without throwing insults and personal remarks and I feel pretty sorry for them.

Cheers

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It's an easy mistake for a moderator to make as it's not obvious that a thread is locked until you jump right to the last page, and even then it isn't as obvious as you can still type in etc.. I don't believe the moderator was intentionally trying to get their last word in unfairly as it's a fairly easy thing to do without realising. Why everything has to be a big conspiracy is beyond me, people make mistakes and do things unintentionally.

As for why the thread was locked, it had basically just turned into "I am right and you're an word not allowed" festival. Yes, I'm also guilty and I should have kept my opinion to myself because the topic under discussion was something I was loosely involved in. However, some folk simply can't voice their own opinion without throwing insults and personal remarks and I feel pretty sorry for them.

Cheers

Umm, can't remember the last time I replied to a thread without looking at the last page....

Perhaps the moderator under discussion could clarify what his intentions were.

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Umm, can't remember the last time I replied to a thread without looking at the last page....

It's pretty easy to do. I could have the topic open in another browser tab for a few hours, the thread is locked, and then I jump back to the tab later in the day and type in a reply to a comment I'm reading unaware the thread is locked. If you have moderator rights, it will post, even though the thread is locked.

You can quite easily reply to a comment on page 2, without jumping to page 3.

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It's pretty easy to do. I could have the topic open in another browser tab for a few hours, the thread is locked, and then I jump back to the tab later in the day and type in a reply to a comment I'm reading unaware the thread is locked. If you have moderator rights, it will post, even though the thread is locked.

You can quite easily reply to a comment on page 2, without jumping to page 3.

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